General Motors launched Saturn Ion in 2003 as a replacement for the S Series that had come to an end, but this is not a singulary model, since other designs accopanied this change on the market. According to statistics, Saturn Ion satisfied customers more than any other compact car sold on the American market, and here we have the reason for its sales longevity, till 2007 when Saturn Astra took its place. This car included the famous General Motors Delta platform and it had a standard DOHC Ecotec I4 engine that generated 140 horsepower.
The interior design of Saturn Ion had a very striking feature because of the instrument panel position, thus instead of being located behind the steering wheel as it happens for most other car concepts, it had a frontal position in the center of the dashboard. The Saturn Ion varieties available on the market included the coupe and the sedan. The novelty this car enjoyed came from the gearbox that had enough room for five forward gears adjusted to the regular manual gearbox. The ratios were conceived in such a way so as to improve the acceleration time and make fuel consume efficient. Moreover, with Saturn Ion, heat was no longer a problem for the planetary gear set.
An upgraded Saturn Ion variant appeared in 2004 as part of the Red Line designed by General Motors. The model was imagined as a sportier car with a longer-enduring engine of 205 horsepower, a harder suspension and re-valved shock absorbers; the LSJ, Ecotec engine was the only one used in the manufacturing of this Saturn Ion variant. 2004 also saw the launching of a limited Saturn Ion edition with upgrades both in outer and interior design. The price was higher, but the cosmetic look was surely different. The only colors for this select model included electric blue, black onyx and chilli pepper red.
Until 2007, several improvements were made for the Saturn Ion engine power and interior design. Some of the varieties were also discontinued because of various technical issues that made their reliability questionable: this was the case with the Aisin model. It was during this time that Saturn Ion gained a negative reputation because of the bad publicity received from discontented reviewers. A re-modeling of the Saturn Ion had been announced for 2008, and the world wide web was full of pictures for the new model. And then Saturn Astra emerged.
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